Well, first of all, it is a quote from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which I probably should have mentioned). But beyond that, I do think the stock market largely serves as a separate entity to many other parts of the economy. While the two are obviously tethered and there are impacts each way, gains in the stock market don't necessarily mean much for those not holding stock

I can agree with that, I just gathered the impression that you were making the claim that they were somehow completely disconnected or at least that the stock market only has a minor affect on the economy. A stock market always reflects investor confidence. If investors are happily investing in stocks that usually reflects good on business. Releasing stocks (Making your company public) is also a good way of pushing a mid sized business into the larger market.

Rujikinwrote:
Cutting regulations has a very large effect on businesses as does business confidence in the future. Reducing regulations is a major financial policy when it comes to businesses deciding what to do. Yes there has been steady growth but once Trump took the reigns it suddenly increased beyond Obama's norms.

The stock market is a combination of {Current economic value} + {Future economic value in current dollars}. Right now I am seeing a LOT of hope for the future because its risen far beyond the current economic value of the economy.

Don't confuse a stock ticker for economic growth. You're in a bull market right now and this tax plan is driving it up but not for positive reasons. Most companies are moving to use the tax plan's cash infusion for stock buybacks ( and to a lesser extent, mergers and what not ). These will keep running up the bull market but they're only generating dividends for shareholders. The stock market isn't doing shit for anyone in the lower and middle class.

As for regulations, no, actually. You're making a blanket statement that regulation = bad = therefore anything that reduces regulation = good for business = good for business good for us. If your goal was to reduce regulatory burden to benefit business and people you would study it out then target unnecessary regulations. All Trump is doing is quite literally "Did Obama do it? Then I'm undoing it". Regardless of how absurd the result such as nixing humane treatment of chickens, nixing protections on 60% of your water, blowing up a pair of national parks, net neutrality, so on and so forth. He's also been pretty much destroying the EPA from the inside out.

Just because something is "good" for a corporation from a profit standpoint doesn't mean its good for the American economy or the American people. Sure, a business can make more money if it just dumps chemicals directly into a lake instead of properly disposing of them but that is hardly good for anyone or thing aside from that business's bottom line. Ultimately it will come back around to the taxpayer to have to pay to clean up that toxic lake while bearing the health costs associated with it after it leaked into the food chain or the drinking water.

Rujikinwrote:
Cutting regulations has a very large effect on businesses as does business confidence in the future. Reducing regulations is a major financial policy when it comes to businesses deciding what to do. Yes there has been steady growth but once Trump took the reigns it suddenly increased beyond Obama's norms.

The stock market is a combination of {Current economic value} + {Future economic value in current dollars}. Right now I am seeing a LOT of hope for the future because its risen far beyond the current economic value of the economy.

Don't confuse a stock ticker for economic growth. You're in a bull market right now and this tax plan is driving it up but not for positive reasons. Most companies are moving to use the tax plan's cash infusion for stock buybacks ( and to a lesser extent, mergers and what not ). These will keep running up the bull market but they're only generating dividends for shareholders. The stock market isn't doing shit for anyone in the lower and middle class.

As for regulations, no, actually. You're making a blanket statement that regulation = bad = therefore anything that reduces regulation = good for business = good for business good for us. If your goal was to reduce regulatory burden to benefit business and people you would study it out then target unnecessary regulations. All Trump is doing is quite literally "Did Obama do it? Then I'm undoing it". Regardless of how absurd the result such as nixing humane treatment of chickens, nixing protections on 60% of your water, blowing up a pair of national parks, net neutrality, so on and so forth. He's also been pretty much destroying the EPA from the inside out.

Just because something is "good" for a corporation from a profit standpoint doesn't mean its good for the American economy or the American people. Sure, a business can make more money if it just dumps chemicals directly into a lake instead of properly disposing of them but that is hardly good for anyone or thing aside from that business's bottom line. Ultimately it will come back around to the taxpayer to have to pay to clean up that toxic lake while bearing the health costs associated with it after it leaked into the food chain or the drinking water.

You do stock buybacks when the stock price is low and you have spare cash with very few investment opportunities. You don't do it when your stock is soaring and you have plenty of business investments you could do. Don't become a CEO.

I'm between the lower/middle class, depending on your definition. It is helping me and my dad out biggly. Retirement investments are done through the stock market so this soaring market is doing wonders for people's portfolio.

We both know the government will pile on completely pointless regulations and over time old regulations no longer make sense. One of the businesses I work work ran into that. Old government regulations required a stupid roundabout way of doing something when it could be solved very simply because technology changed. They were bugging regulators for a while and now they can do what we have been wanting to do. It will both make it simpler, cheaper, and work better all because an outdated regulation was removed. Every country in the world has this problem but it gets ignored a lot.

While not regulations we have entire sites dedicated to dumb laws in the United states, i bet you can find some for Canada too: http://www.dumblaws.com/

What is sad is that a lot of time "properly disposing" of it means putting it in a large hole till it rains a bunch and it over flows... We complain about it then they move operations to China and do it over there. Then we import the same goods but because its in a different country we ignore them doing it over there without tariffs.

Some regulation is good because the effect of something has a direct effect on something else but we have lots of ancient regulations that make no sense or exist just to exist. In the USA you cannot have a 4 wheeled recreational vehicle that travels on public roads so manufacturers started making them 3 wheeled so now you have the same situation but with less stability, an example of useless regulation. Could probably spend 4 years and only get through a few books worth of useless and outdated regulations.

Rujikinwrote:
You do stock buybacks when the stock price is low and you have spare cash with very few investment opportunities. You don't do it when your stock is soaring and you have plenty of business investments you could do. Don't become a CEO.

No, you do stock buybacks because its less risky and it improves share returns. You're buying a known quantity instead of an untested investment. Stock buybacks are one of the backbones of the current bull market and have been for years now, Goldman Sachs is estimating the rate of buybacks will increase from 75 billion this year to 590 billion in 2018 if this goes through. It's being estimated that at least half of the extra money coming back to corporations will go straight into stock buybacks.

Don't become a CEO. =p

Rujikinwrote:I'm between the lower/middle class, depending on your definition. It is helping me and my dad out biggly. Retirement investments are done through the stock market so this soaring market is doing wonders for people's portfolio.

Then you'll want to keep a really close eye on this market for any sign of an impending bubble burst.

Rujikinwrote:We both know the government will pile on completely pointless regulations and over time old regulations no longer make sense. One of the businesses I work work ran into that. Old government regulations required a stupid roundabout way of doing something when it could be solved very simply because technology changed. They were bugging regulators for a while and now they can do what we have been wanting to do. It will both make it simpler, cheaper, and work better all because an outdated regulation was removed. Every country in the world has this problem but it gets ignored a lot.

You're arguing against a point I did not make. I said that regulatory issues exist but the proper way to address them is to actually study the problem and target the useless regulations. But that is not what Trump is doing. Most of what he's doing is just undo whatever Obama did without any concern for why. You haven't demonstrated that any of big regulatory moves Trump has made belong in this category of ancient / useless regulation. Most of what Trump is targeting is either "because the last guy did it" or because it will doll out some more money to corporations that don't need any more of said money. At the expense of some aspect of America's safety, health or environment. Without any kind of study or research and even occasionally in the face of all scientific evidence.

That is not how you fix the problem you're talking about and the problem you're talking about is not the one Trump is "fixing".

Rescinding animal humane guidelines or rolling back protections on coal pollution are not "ancient regulations" nor are they dumb laws with no reason to exist. You can't cut regulations purely for the sake of cutting regulations. Which is what he's doing. Much like the GOP tax plan you can't just pull things out of your ass to tackle a complex multifaceted issue and justify it with wishful thinking that it'll magically work out somehow.